Tiger-Cats never knew what hit them in Grey Cup thrashing

Saskatchewan Roughriders slotback and former B.C. Lion Geroy Simon hoists the cup after beating the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to win the Grey Cup Sunday in Regina.

Photograph by: Jonathan Hayward, The Canadian Press
, Postmedia News

REGINA — The look on Henry Burris’s face as he caught a fleeting glimpse of the snap from centre sailing past him toward the endzone was one of those, “What the heck just happened?” expressions.

It was replaced in quick succession by a glare in the general direction of his centre, and then by one that said, quite plainly: “I’m not going after that.”

By the time he considered that it would be a good thing to make an attempt at recovering the ball, it was a lost cause.

And so it was for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, who didn’t give up any points on that fumble, but really never knew what hit them in Sunday’s Grey Cup game. Then, or later.

Down 31-6 when the trucks rolled the stage on field for the halftime show, the Ticats -- like their quarterback -- had a full half ahead of them in which the most they could hope for was to salvage some semblance of their good name after an embarrassing 30 minutes of bad advertising for East Division football.

Swept away by an irresistable force -- the Roughriders, if not Rider Nation itself -- the Ticats ended their surprising season on a note so sour, it was hard to remember the good parts.

“We played a better football team today. They were just more physical, they were stronger, and we missed too many throws, dropped too many balls on offence,” said Kent Austin, the Hamilton coach who had a big hand in two-thirds of the Riders’ previous Grey Cup victories as a player and coach ... and a somewhat smaller, reluctant hand in their fourth, Sunday’s 45-23 shellacking.

He didn’t blame his quarterback specifically, other than to say “we had a lot of open receivers at times. For the most part the protection was decent. We just didn’t throw and catch the ball like we have.”

But the 38-year-old Burris knew that if he wasn’t the problem, he certainly hadn’t been part of the solution on this day, because the ‘Cats had no answers for the Roughriders’ big men up front.

“They are the Grey Cup champions for a reason, and they kicked our butts today,” said Burris, who finished with 20 completions on 43 attempts, 272 yards and an interception. No touchdown passes, though he ran for one, an 18-yarder, in the third quarter.

It was not what any of them expected, but Burris least of all.

“Shoot, any time you get late into your career, and everything that we overcame to get to this point -- our team battled our butts off ... and for me, how many more years do I have? It doesn’t feel easy with each game that you lose. It’s very disappointing to finish it this way, with family coming up and all, not to be able to get it done is a new experience for me.”

It wasn’t as though Burris’s counterpart, Saskatchewan quarterback Darian Durant, was immaculate. He fumbled on back-to-back possessions to start the game, and maybe if the second one hadn’t popped straight up in the air to Rider running back Kory Sheets, on the dead run, for a 42-yard gain, it all might have turned out differently.

“I don’t know,” Austin said. “We didn’t make enough plays, period.

“And then, the ball bounces the way it does, you know? They got a sweet bounce on the second (fumble) and ran it all the way down and it led to their first score but ... I don’t know whether ultimately it would have made much difference. They converted a lot of second downs, and we just dug too big a hole.”

Or if the Ticats hadn’t first lost right guard Greg Wojt and then, gruesomely, everyone’s favourite Jeopardy contestant, left guard Peter Dyakowski, forcing Wojt to return, perhaps they’d have found a way to run the ball the way the Riders did -- 268 yards, to Hamilton’s paltry 57.

But probably not.

The scope of the Hamilton drubbing left the stats crew with a grocery list of achievements, each of them a damning indictment of the Ticats. Geroy Simon, who hadn’t scored since Oct. 1 and had only three touchdowns all season, caught two against them in the first half.

The 31 points Saskatchewan scored were the most by one team in the first half of a Grey Cup, ever. That’s 101 years of ever. Kory Sheets’s 197 yards rushing broke the Grey Cup record of Edmonton’s Johnny Bright, who ran for 169 in the 1956 game.

For a time in the third quarter, when the Roughriders let up on the gas pedal and the Ticats’ halftime adjustments had their desired effect, the lead narrowed to 31-16 -- almost enough to make throats begin to constrict in the Sea of Green.

The Riders’ offence stalled time and again, and there was a tiny ray of hope.

“We got back to two scores, and then we (Luke Tasker) ran into the punter,” Austin said. “That was the turning point of the second half. We got them off the field and we were going to get the ball back -- we were moving the ball pretty well -- and then we run into the punter, and that was it. They scored on us after that and then threw a deep ball on us. We gave up too many big plays on defence, didn’t tackle well.”

Both coach and quarterback said the crowd didn’t play a role, and even the weather -- after a bitterly cold week -- turned fine for the game.

“Compared to how it was during the week, conditions weren’t bad,” Burris said. “We’ve played in worse conditions in Guelph. It wasn’t the conditions, the things that happened were self (inflicted.)”

Asked if he had any sense of what the game meant to the team he had once led, and the people who turned Grey Cup City green all week, Austin’s dark mood lifted. A little.

“Oh, it’s great for the team, great for the province, it’s good for the league,” he said. “We want every team to be strong and successful -- and Saskatchewan certainly is a shining light in that regard.”

The Ticats filed off the field into their dank old Mosaic Stadium locker room, scowling, all but veteran offensive lineman Marwan Hage, who had a smile on his face.

“It's either that or cry, right?” he said. “You've got to pick one. You just need to remember why we're doing this. We're lucky to do this. We're just privileged people. It's too easy to come out here and start hating and screaming and pounding walls. It's too easy. You've got to be be humble and give credit to where credit is due. They won and we lost.”

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